Biblical Interpretation: Certainty or Persuasion?

by Robert Hatch

No interpretation of scripture is provable. How would anyone know that it had been proved? Who would be the judge and jury to rule that the case had been made beyond the shadow of a doubt and was now, therefore, closed? Would it then be a fact on which everyone would agree?

The reality is that we tend to think an interpretation has been proved when we are persuaded (or, more commonly, have been indoctrinated) that it is true. But that only means that we believe it. No matter how much evidence we find for our position, it will not be persuasive to everyone. Which is to say that our interpretations will never be the same as facts. Doesn't the possibility always exist that we may be wrong?

The fact that we engage in persuasive discourse regarding alternative interpretations of various biblical texts suggests that none of them are provable. Nevertheless, we reason our way to conclusions that are supportable by the evidence of scripture. Because an interpretation isn't provable doesn't mean that it is without sufficient evidence to make it persuasive. Just never persuasive to everyone.

I think that faith is a matter of persuasion rather than of certainty. The subjectiverendering of Hebrews 11:1 that identifies faith with "being certain of what we do not see" would be improved by the objectiverendering "the evidence of things not seen," according to the scholarly resources I've consulted. Biblical faith is not a feeling of certainty that comes from a religious experience. Instead, biblical faith ispersuasion regarding one’s understandingof the biblical testimony about God's fulfillment of his promise. What God has done to fulfill his promise to Abraham (from the birth of Isaac to Sarah through the exodus of Israel from Egypt to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead), asevidenced by the eyewitness testimony preserved by the biblical writers, is thecontent of “the word,” which is the objectof biblical faith. As Paul wrote, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of [meaning both from and about] Christ” (Rom. 10:17). (Any interpretation of Jesus that doesn't focus on the fulfillment of promise is, in my view, suspect.)

And since biblical faith is persuasionregarding (and, therefore, depends on) one’s understanding of the biblical testimony, how can one ever be certain that one has understood correctly? Or that one’s understanding can’t be improved? (And the only alternative to being persuaded by one’s own understanding is being indoctrinated—as in told what to believe—by religious authority figures and structures.)

Which is why Jesus exhorted his followers, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7). The object of one’s asking and seeking and knocking is not some earthly good for which one feels the need (which seems to be the most common object of prayer); the object is the truth about God—which, when believed, creates a covenantal relationship with God—as it is revealed in and through Jesus. And the search for a true understanding of God is a lifelong process.

However certain I may FEEL about my interpretation, my feeling of certainty does not equate to absolute truth. If I think it does, I may feel entitled to "disfellowship" anyone who disagrees with me on the grounds that he or she refuses to believe “the word of God.” Feelings of certainty, which are sometimes called "convictions," can lead to behavior that is anything but "Christian."

The desire to "prove" interpretations of scripture and achieve absolute certainty may be related to a desire to determine what is essential to believe in order to be saved. The well-known restorationist slogan, "In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity," assumes that someone or ones are qualified to determine what the "essentials" are. What's to be gained, however, by identifying certain beliefs as essential to salvation, other than the exclusion from “salvation” of those who disagree? (Which seems more like a loss than a gain.) And it inevitably excludes the “charity”—that is, Christian love—that is supposed to govern “all things” in which Christians engage one another.

It seems better to keep seeking and speaking the truth as one understands it, and let that common search be the ground for unity. And let the power of "the Spirit of truth" (John 16:13, a NT metaphor for the persuasive power of the biblical message) do the persuading.

Absolute certainty is, it seems to me, the prerogative of God. (Which suggests that those who pretend to absolute certainty are “playing God.”) The only human approximation would be God’s biblical agents—called “the apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20)—to whom God revealed "the word,” inspiring them to reveal it to others, who preserved their message in the biblical writings. Since they are not around to tell us precisely what they meant and, therefore, what their words mean today, the rest of us must be content with reasoning our way, as the grace of God has opened the way, to persuasion regarding the truth about God.